"It takes me 2 hours to reach office. There is no time left to do anything other than a little walk after dinner." This is the reality that most of the people who are living in a metropolitan city and working at a distance of more than 10-15 km. Not many of us are lucky to have an office within 10-15 min drive. This is frustrating. Here you are working hard to have a life where you can live life the way you want too. Which in most cases you are able to do, unless, it is hampered by the [...]

Stamina: You need stamina. There is no doubt about it. Most of the things that we enjoy or want to do require stamina for the proper experience. Yoga can work gently with your body and still increase your stamina overall. In simplest terms, stamina/endurance(wiki) is defined as your ability to exert yourself before getting tired. Each one of us has difference endurance/stamina, which is dependent on physical health, the task for which we are evaluating ourselves. But still, a healthy human being is supposed to have certain standard endurance as a measurement of health. One of slightly less common but [...]

gargling salt water When you are living any of metropolitan or even a big enough city, then with weather change, irritation in the throat is something you notice. This, if not taken care of, usually escalates to a sore throat or viral. Why does this happen? The main reason attributed is air pollution. Though there are many other small issues too. The question is how pollution is affecting our throat? Shouldn’t it stay confined to our respiratory system only? Air Pollution The air quality around us doesn’t only effect out the respiratory system. It affects our food pipe too. You see, our [...]

One of main topics that came up for discussion many times was ‘sweets(mithai)’ on festive season of Diwali. Almost always, in end what it lead to was a resounding decision to watch the sweets. Not to eat anything with word sweet in it (or even a hint of sugar in it. ) This awareness about being healthy is appreciative. But, I think how you approach it, should be decided with sound reasoning. A little history Diet in Indian subcontinent was always carbohydrate heavy. Ghee, sweets etc. also formed an important part of the diet. Plus, looking beyond last 25 years, there [...]

Stress: How and why of it Stress? Me, I don’t take stress or no, I work out my stress and thus it doesn’t affect me. That is the most common response we say to ourselves, whenever there is talk about stress. And the main reason for this is not hard to find. We have skewed knowledge about what stress is. The scientific details (long and boring :) )are here at wiki. Or, skip this link and read on :) How yoga helps our body to counter effects of stress: Heart Beat: Whatever the level of stress level, it directly effects our heartbeats. The [...]

What is anxiety? Anxiety or being anxious is one of the negative outcomes of being stressed. Stress is an emotional response to pressures we feel in life and anxiety is our response to stress itself. There are many other effects of stress, why anxiety takes centre stage? Because Anxiety is when fear overcomes other emotions as a response to stress. The apprehension itself limits the person’s capacity to think something much productive in such state. Moreover, it has been found that anxiety leads to depression over a period of time, with many long-term effects. You can read about anxiety study here. [...]

(This post is last in 3 parts series about how yoga works on different systems of our body. You can read part-1 and part-2 here) The Mind Aah, the mind. The final frontier of being healthy and peaceful. Mind and body are normally considered two separate entities. But yoga, body/mind are viewed as extension of each other in holistic terms. You can’t have a tensed mind in healthy or vice versa. They impact each other, because they are co-dependent. But as compared to body, mind is not easy to guide into better health. After mind is what we use to [...]

Wrong breathing? How? No, you didn’t read wrong. Wrong breathing habit, is more common then we like to believe. And it’s mostly undetected. So, let’s analyse, what is this wrong breathing habit being referred to here? Take a deep breath! Now, observe how you did it!! What did you actually do? Did you inhale as long as possible, while lifting the chest area(in some case even shoulders), filling in your lungs? If little more aware, you must have sat straight (if not already) while doing so. Now: After this breath, did you focus on exhaling also? or your breath just got [...]

Proper Breathing So from the part-1 post, we know that how when we hold the asana, our major muscle groups are gently stretched, and so does muscles joining the bones. This, when held for some time, leads to increased blood circulation in that area. Which in turn leads to the better nourishment of affected body parts. Now let’s delve deeper into how yoga asana practice works on other body functions (respiratory system). Biology of Breathing (respiratory system) When we breathe, it happens in three steps: Inhaling adequate breath Proper exchange of oxygen & carbon dioxide Complete exhalation This is what [...]

How does yoga work on body? You must have got to know from various sources about how yoga is beneficial for body(Or if you haven’t yet, then read this post published in 2007 in yoga journal). But the question, that follows when you read more about how yoga is done, is that how does yoga work on human body? How can, bending and stretching ourselves in certain way and holding that for few moments, going to make us healthy? Our understanding about anything related to health is based on visible efforts and actionable data. With regards to yoga, little explanation is [...]